WEBVTT - From the Vault: Strange Ice, Part 2 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:07.960 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:10.880 name is Robert Lamb. Today is Saturday, So once again 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:13.360 we venture into the vault to finish up our two 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:18.520 parter on strange Ice. This episode originally published two one, 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.000 twenty twenty four. Let's dive right in. 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:28.320 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:36.600 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:37.600 name is Robert. 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.239 Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:45.080 part two of our look at Strange Ice. Now, initially 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:46.519 we didn't know this was going to be a two 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:50.680 part series. Last time, we looked at odd ice formations 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.360 that can occur on Earth, such as the main one 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.360 I looked at was this thing called nieves penitentes or 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.600 just penitentes, which are these very strange sort of blades 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.520 or spikes or pinnacles of ice that you can sometimes 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.759 find in high mountain ranges, especially in the dry Andies. 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.520 And we looked at a historical anecdote of Charles Darwin 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.280 trekking across the Andes and coming across a field of 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.000 these things, one that had a horse frozen inside it. 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:22.800 But we also looked at ice formations such as ball ice, 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:27.360 candle ice, rotten ice, and a lot of other creepy, interesting, 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:33.520 physically counterintuitive ways that ice can form or decompose. And 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.240 so we're coming back today to talk some more about 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:37.080 strange ice. 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:39.520 Yeah, I guess this episode's kind of a release valve 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.080 from the last episode. There were a number of threads 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.319 that had come up in our research that we just 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:48.120 had to continue to pursue. So some of these are 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:52.400 definitely still going to deal with direct examples of ice 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:55.960 manifesting in a way that we might think of as weird, 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.080 behaving in a way that some people might think of 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.840 as weird. But we'll also get into some some I 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:05.400 thought very fascinating and haunting folk traditions concerning the ice. 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:07.360 All right, what have you got, Rob. 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.960 So in the last episode we discussed mostly in passing 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.720 the dangers of ice, specifically coastal sea ice and any 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.920 sort of icy environment that humans will attempt to traverse 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:26.640 or in any way exploit for hunting, fishing, recreation, scientific purposes. Specifically, 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:28.880 thinking about rotten ice, you know, the idea that it's 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:33.120 just not safe to venture upon. And I imagine we 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:35.200 have plenty of listeners out there who grew up in 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.440 places with icy environments who can attest to the dangers 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:40.959 of ice that. I mean, there's just so many ways 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.200 that it can potentially be dangerous. There's, of course, you 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.080 know the fact that ice can be slippery, You can fall, 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.679 and if you fall on ice, it is hard, and 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.800 you know that can hurt you as well. Then you 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.480 get into areas where ice may give way, It may 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.760 plunge us into freezing water, It may plunge us into 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.520 hollow areas where the water is drained out, and so forth. 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:06.320 There are so many ways that ice can pose a danger. 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:08.919 Ice can also just be physically heavy as well. 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:12.520 Yeah, the danger of plunging through ice into a hazard 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:14.600 below is not only the case on say like a 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.400 frozen pond or lake or something. But think about what 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.280 happened to that horse that Charles Darwin came across. We 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.200 don't know, but he speculated, well, maybe when the snow 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.880 was packed higher, it somehow like fell into a hole 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.840 or crevasse in the ice and then and then died 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.880 like that, and then the rest of it sublimated away 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:33.440 around it. 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.320 Yeah, and you don't even have to have really extreme 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:41.960 environments for potentially dangerous examples of this from occurring. Like 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.720 I remember as a kid encountering situations where you'd have 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.960 like a bog or you know, a marshy area, and 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:50.880 you would have a situation where you would have this 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.040 sort of ice cap on top, and I guess like 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:57.200 the water drained down during the melting, and so you'd 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.480 have this this thin layer of ice on and you 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.760 could fall down through it potentially or climb down through 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.320 it and play in it as a child, And so yeah, 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:07.880 I guess that's one of the things that we'll be 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.480 getting into here, is like ice creates unique environments that, 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.040 especially to a child, can be as intriguing as they 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:15.400 are potentially hazardous. 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.159 I'm just thinking now about little rob climbing down through 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:20.520 the ice to play in the bog. Yeah. 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.279 Yeah, that was part of my childhood. So yeah, I 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.760 think it should come as no surprise that there are 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:31.760 traditional tales and folk traditions seemingly meant to keep children 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:36.280 away from ice, Because again, ice is great fun, children 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.120 are curious, and since time out of Mind parents have 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:43.920 invented and passed down tales of perhaps more embodied threats 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:50.640 monsters to scare children away from potentially dangerous environments. Now 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:52.800 this may ring a bell because we discussed one of 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.839 these on the podcast a few years back. This would 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.480 be Jenny green Teeth, a river hag of English folklore, 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.080 understood as a kind of nursery boogie to keep children 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.800 away from the water's edge, bogie rather not boogie. 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:11.760 Yeah. I think Jenny could be used to warn children 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.640 of the dangers of water in multiple environments. But the 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.760 one that I remember being really salient was like in 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.320 certain regions of England, there might be places where there 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:24.800 were holes or pits in the ground, maybe marl pits 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:26.919 or something like that, that had been hollowed out and 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:29.720 then filled in with water. And sometimes this water would 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.440 have coverings of like algae or plant matter or something 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:35.000 on top of it that would just make it look 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:37.400 very green, make it look like it was just you know, 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:40.760 a continuation of the grass almost yeah. 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.520 Yeah, And you know, look to your point. You know, 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.200 once you have a folk creation like this, it can 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:49.720 be deployed in various ways. It can sort of take 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:55.000 on different meanings and different stressors in different stories. But 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.000 there are many variations on this theme in global traditions 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:01.160 where there's some sort of supernatural being it is associated 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.040 with the water and the dangers of the water, especially 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.440 for young children. The Japanese Kappa is one that we've 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.480 also discussed in the past. This sometimes takes on these connotations, 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.000 and then of course this is another thing we're discussed 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.120 in the show before. There's of course the nineteen seventy 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.360 three British public information film Lonely Water, also known as 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.279 the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water, featuring the voice 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.160 of Donald Pleasance. This very much carries on the tradition here, 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:32.039 and it's often discussed as something that traumatized an entire 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:33.680 generation of British children. 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.880 It sounds like it worked. I mean, are you going 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.280 to go play in the flooded mind pits now? 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:46.240 Yeah? You know. It's a complicated topic though, the use 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:51.320 of boogiemen and boogie women, I guess to frightened children. 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:56.120 I remember reading about some of the works of Francisco 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:03.159 Goya in which he was criticizing this and and like 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.279 tying in this whole idea that like, by having parents 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:11.880 that invoke supernatural threats to keep children in line, they're 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.360 not only potentially protecting their child from these threats, but 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:20.880 they're also instilling supernatural belief at an early age that 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:25.520 then you know, matures and becomes these other modes of 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:30.280 supernatural belief that to some may be seen as more 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:31.880 harmful in their adulthood. 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:36.040 So, like his idea is, if you teach a child 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.679 to fear spectral dangers, even if it's useful in keeping 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.360 them away from a real physical danger in childhood, maybe 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:46.160 they just grow up to continue to project spectral dangers 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:47.400 that are not necessary. 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.080 Yeah, I believe that's the argument. Though. Of course this 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.840 is a complicated issue, so you know, obviously it's there 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.120 are a lot of a lot of ins and outs here, 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.480 so I don't want to simplify it too much. But 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:00.560 it's interesting to think about, like what is mean when 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.720 you introduce something like this? What does it mean when 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:09.000 you introduces something that's not even tied to scaring children 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.800 so much, like something like a Santa Claus or Easter bunny? 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.120 You know what effect does that have? And of course 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.080 you know a lot has been written and continues to 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.880 be written and said about this. So anyway, given all 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.720 of this, it again should comes no surprise that there 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:32.400 are traditions that involve creating supernatural entities or monstrous entities 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:36.680 that are associated with the dangers of ice and keeping 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.080 children away from the ice. So I want to turn 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:46.720 to a couple of these from Native American First Nations traditions. 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:52.360 The first of these is the Abo dampkin. This. I 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.160 was reading about this in the Dictionary of Native American 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:59.440 Mythology by Sam D. Gill and Irene F. Sullivan. This 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.920 is apparently an entity in the traditions of the Malaset 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:08.640 and Passimaquadi people in what is now the Canadian province 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.199 of New Brunswick and the US state of Maine. The 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.400 authors here describe it as a boogie monster with long 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.320 hair and huge teeth. Quote. Fear of him keeps small 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:22.320 children from straying on thin, newly frozen ice in the 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.400 winter and unguarded beaches in the summer. 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:27.800 Oh so is this creature in the water? 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:30.800 Yeah? Yeah, I was looking for more information on this 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.360 and according to Native languages as Native hyphen Languages dot org, 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.920 it is also sometimes sometimes described as a fanged sea serpent, 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:44.240 sometimes with like long red hair, and some accounts say 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.440 that it might have once been a human woman and 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.200 was transformed into this state. And despite the fact that 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.800 some Western interpretations apparently have classified this is a kind 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:57.240 of vampire. It is actually better thought of as a 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.239 sea monster. So yeah, this would be something that dwells 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.000 within the water. Now. Another one that I was reading 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.880 about this one is also a number of review may 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:10.960 be familiar with, is the Qualipeluit. This is an entity 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.200 in the traditions of the Inuit, and there's an excellent 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:19.400 ride up about it on the Kikwitani Inuit Association's Inuit 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:23.280 Myths and Legends website. That's Inuit Myths dot Com, which 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:27.120 features some just haunting artwork and also text that is 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.800 available in both English and Inuit. Joe I included one 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.320 of these images from the website here that is just 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:34.599 absolutely terrifying. 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:39.160 Yeah, extremely Oh no, and it's like snatching a baby. 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:43.640 That's what they do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The website describes 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:48.640 them as scaly marine humanoids that reek of sulfur, and yeah, 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.400 they snatch children. They prey on children who play alone 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.360 on the beach or get too close to breaking ice. 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.319 They may also feature pouches on their back to stuff 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:02.160 children in. I couldn't tell. It seemed ambiguous based on 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.160 the entry and based on the illustrations. There are a 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.120 couple of additional illustrations on the website whether this pouch 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.480 is in their clothing or if this is a pouch 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:15.240 in their body. Here's a haunting excerpt from the inuitens 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:19.840 dot com website quote. Usually the qualipi luit jump out 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.959 of the water and grab children without any warning. Sometimes, however, 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.680 you can hear them knocking under the ice. Some elders 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.160 have said that if the ocean begins to become wavy 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.600 in an area, or steam begins to rise from the ocean, 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:36.800 a qualipiluit might be hiding underneath the water. 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:38.559 This one is so scary. 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.120 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love the idea that of one 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.079 of these creatures underneath the ice, like tapping or knocking 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:47.880 at it, especially. 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.840 Especially because if you ever do have experiences out on 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.360 ice over a frozen body of water, you can hear 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:56.760 strange sounds emanating from below. 0:11:57.520 --> 0:11:59.600 That's right, right, And one of the things we'll get 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:01.439 into your hair in a bit is things that can 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.720 suddenly occur that also have sounds regarding the ice, especially 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.320 the ice close to the shore. So the direct line 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.920 was not made between these two topics and the material 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:12.760 I was looking at, But I can't help but think 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.120 about it now that I've researched it a little bit. 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:19.080 But anyway, I highly recommend inuitmths dot com, the website 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.600 futures profiles, and a handful of other mythological beings and creatures, 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.280 including the two Knit who I mentioned in a recent 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.200 Monster Fact episode. Wow. All right, so I mentioned the 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.600 ice making sounds. So I want to move on now 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:36.719 to the topic of what is known as ice shove. Now, 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.680 this is more of a clear example of weird ice, 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.120 or rather ice behaving in a way that many myths 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:44.319 might think of as weird. Though for a number of 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.840 you out there, ice shove is just a reality, potential 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.560 reality of the winter months. I was reading about this 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:55.560 in Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams, and he mentions there's a 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:59.079 whole passage where he's talking about like long stillness broken 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.960 by sudden moves as sort of a hallmark of Arctic landscapes, 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.400 and he ties this also into just like a sense 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:08.640 of patience that is also that he observed as being 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:13.800 present in native populations and indigenous peoples. But he cites 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.640 an example of this ice shove concerning the breaking of 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.200 both river ice and sea ice, and for river ice. 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.160 Lopez describes it as follows, quote pistol reports of cracking 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.120 on the river, and then the sound of breaking branches 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.000 and the whining pop of a falling tree. Is the 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.800 careening blocks of ice gouge the river banks. And he 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:39.120 describes the sea ice variation as follows quote Suddenly, in 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.920 the middle of winter and without warning, a huge piece 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:46.120 of sea ice surges hundreds of feet inland like something alive, 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:53.000 and he cites the inopiat word ivu. I hope I'm 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:58.080 pronouncing that right. My apologies for any mispronunciations on these terms. 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.720 And it is also as ice shove. I've also seen 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.199 it referred to as ice tsunamis, along with a number 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:09.400 of other English names. Ice shoves are generally classified as 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:15.840 onshore ice pushes caused by wind currents, changes in temperature, 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:20.440 and other causes. As meteorologist Matthew Capucci explained it in 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.480 a twenty twenty Washington Post article, there are a lot 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.680 of explainers out these out there that often pop up 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:31.960 when exceptional or notable examples of ice shoves occur, and 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:36.080 this I believe is one of those cases. This meteorologists 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.320 pointed out that as the wind blows over a long 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:40.880 sheet of ice, it can give that sheet of ice 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:45.600 enough momentum that it can't stop when pushed against the shore. Instead, 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.400 it fragments, and then the fragments pile up in heaps 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.560 of shattered ice on the coast. Conditions have to be 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.080 just right. The ice has to be thin enough, it 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.200 has to be brittle enough, and it generally only piles 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.160 up a few feet onto the shore. But there are 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.200 of course exceptional examples where things get much higher, or 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.760 they go up the shore a little bit more. Apparently 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.200 some places are more ideal for it. I saw Lake 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.120 Erie pointed out in this article due to its length 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.480 and particular orientation. And again there's some pretty exceptional examples. 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.400 In June of twenty eleven, along the Chuck Chisea coast 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:25.760 in Alaska, ice shove piled up fifteen feet, and I've 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.600 seen it record heights as high as like forty feet 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.360 in some cases. So that's like a forty foot wall 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.480 of ice fragments piling up along the coast. 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:35.280 Yikes. 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:40.320 Yeah, And Lopez's ice shove measurements here Seaman keeping with 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.920 the measurements I'm seeing in twenty twenty and ice shove 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.280 on Lake Winnebago was, according to NBC twenty six out 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:51.480 of Northeastern Wisconsin quote, a couple of hundred feet long 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.520 and taller than the supper club itself. What does that 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.440 quote mean? I'm taking it out of context. The article 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.720 had this a foot of the ice shove piled up 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:05.120 next to Jim and Linda's Lake Shore supper club in 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.280 the town of Pipe. Appears to be like a single 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.160 floor building. But still that is a lot of ice. 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.600 Like that's a huge wall of moving ice or I 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:16.840 mean it's no longer moving, but you know, still it 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.480 has moved up, it has advanced in a way that 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:20.240 is concerning. 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.040 The supper club is threatened. They're gonna get ice in 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.800 their hot dish. 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:28.800 Oh man. Wow. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:31.880 So I looked up a few pictures of this, and 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.120 it is alarming because, yeah, you can see cases where 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.400 I guess these are lakeside houses where the ice is 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:40.760 just shoved right up against the house like you're saying, 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.360 happen to the supper club here, and in some cases 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.560 shoved into the house and apparently causes damage, like you know, 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:48.000 busts the wall or something. 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.560 Yeah. Yeah, so I you know, I guess It's the 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:53.400 kind of thing where you had observed it and you 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.040 knew that it can kind of occur. Suddenly you you 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.960 might have that in your mind when can try to 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.000 convince the children not to play too close to the 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.960 ice sometimes, though it also seems like a rare it's 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:08.639 not so regular in occurrence that it really would happen 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:11.960 all of the time. And coming back to our point earlier, 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:14.720 there are a number of other more common things that 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.399 could be dangerous about the ice and the ice at 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.600 the edge of the coast. Or of course, even when 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:22.840 the ice is melted like the water's edge can still 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:24.600 be dangerous, especially to a young child. 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.120 Yeah, exactly, I mean there's plenty of danger just from 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:27.720 falling in. 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:43.439 Yeah. Now, another interesting ice related phenomena I wanted to 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.119 talk about here. There's less to this, and this one 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.040 will be kind of quick, I guess, but I ran 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:53.040 across this idea of ice blink. It's not so much 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:57.040 a property of the ice itself, but rather an optical interaction. 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:01.240 It's essentially a glare in the sky over an ice field, 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:05.679 though not to be confused with various other various actual 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.480 forms of mirages, such as the fata Morgana, which we've 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.560 discussed in the show before. These are also found in 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:15.040 the Arctic, and there's an entire chapter in Lopez's book 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:19.119 Arctic Dreams where he talks about this, about the Northern 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.840 lights and so forth. But basically, ice blink is just 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.760 the bright white reflection in the clouds above an expanse 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:30.040 of ice. So if you're at sea in the Arctic 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.439 and you see ice blink in the distance and you 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:35.359 know what you're looking at for and looking at, of 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.480 course you can navigate by it, knowing that this means 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:44.280 that there's likely a large expanse of ice in that direction. Likewise, 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.320 the opposite is true with water sky. So if you're 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.960 on a great expanse of ice and the overcast sky 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.320 is bright with reflected light, you might see a dark 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:58.040 patch of sky in the distance that indicates a body 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.920 of open water beneath it. So in other words, it's 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.199 you know, it's the presence of dark clouds over an 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:07.080 area of open water in a region that is otherwise frozen. 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:10.880 And this this is you know, these are signs that 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:15.639 indigenous peoples would have known about and used to navigate, 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:18.520 and and techniques that would then would have been adopted 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.359 by individuals exploring from other parts of the world. It 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:24.440 reminds me of some of some of what we discussed 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:30.360 in our episodes about Pacific navigation and how there are 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:34.320 signs that the informed mind could look for in the 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:36.479 sky that would indicate the presence of an island. 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:38.720 Yeah, that's right. So listeners, if you haven't heard, we 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:42.040 did a series of while back on yeah, techniques of 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:47.080 navigation used by Pacific island peoples to make long sea 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.920 voyages without modern instruments and stuff like that, and it's 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:56.800 amazing how much information you can actually get from things 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:03.720 like the stars, sea currents, birds and things like that 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:07.959 that the untrained eye would never understand to interpret as 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.560 relevant information about where the position of an island was 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:15.199 relative to you. But that was truly one of the 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.199 most mind blowing series I think we've ever done, because 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.639 it just opened my eyes to the fact that there 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.480 is so much information in the world that can be 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:28.520 exploited if you know what to look for, and to 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:30.320 a person who doesn't know what to look for, it's 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.480 completely invisible. You'd have no idea that it corresponded to 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.160 any kind of navigationally relevant facts. 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:38.800 Absolutely, Yeah, it's such a fascinating topic. 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:41.240 And anyway, yeah, this is another thing like that. I 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:43.760 never would have thought of this, but this is very 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:49.199 interesting navigating by the reflection of the surface color of 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:52.119 a landscape over the horizon as it reflects on the 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:53.960 clouds in the sky. 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.720 Yeah, because to the untrained eye, you would just think, O, 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:00.119 dark cloud in the distance. There's a white clouds in 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.040 the distance. But yeah, to know what it means, we 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.240 can give you vital information about where you're going. 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:10.440 Now, speaking of the color of ice and of sea ice, 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.840 this brings me to something I wanted to talk about today, 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:19.159 which is the color of icebergs. I was thinking about 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:23.240 how most icebergs of court, most icebergs and sea ice 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:27.159 and ice sheets you see are basically white in color. 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:31.800 But occasionally I will see photos of icebergs that have 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.400 streaks or whole surfaces that are other colors, maybe blue 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:40.800 icebergs that look very beautiful and strange, and I wonder 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.800 what makes the difference there, So I looked into this 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:47.960 a little bit. Now, most icebergs are indeed white in color, 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:52.040 but of course sometimes icebergs of other colors can be found, apparently, 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.480 especially coming off of Antarctica, and we can talk about 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.840 reasons for that. But the white, relatively opaque surface of 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:05.640 a common iceberg is caused by how ice accumulates, which 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:09.800 is by adding layers of snow. In most cases, so 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:14.600 icebergs typically begin as part of a glacier or a 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:18.639 polar ice sheet, which eventually breaks off in pieces and 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:22.280 floats away in the ocean. So it originally formed along 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:25.320 with the rest of the glacier. And the way that 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:28.920 forms is snow falls down from the sky, it piles up, 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:32.920 it gets compressed, and if it doesn't melt seasonally, more 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:35.879 snow falls on top of it and just keeps piling 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:38.399 up and getting more and more compressed until it forms 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:42.679 this solid chunk or sheet of ice. This process can 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:46.760 become cumulative over many snowfalls, many seasons, many years, and 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:51.199 eventually it forms this glacier, and then a piece of 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:53.960 this glacier or ice sheet can break off and float 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:57.120 away in the water. So what determines the difference in color, Well, 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:00.960 when you see a white iceberg, what you're seeing there, 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:06.760 apparently is the relatively uncompressed upper or outer layers of 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:10.040 the snowpack that is forming the ice on top of 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:18.200 it that relatively uncompressed snow contains lots of little imperfections 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:22.240 like air bubbles especially, and just lots of little reflective 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:28.800 surfaces within the relatively low density outer layers, and these 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:33.560